When only banoffee will do… Mario, this one’s for you!

I have a colleague at work who (bless him!) follows my blog avidly, and it is to him that I dedicate today’s post and recipe wholly because as I was sitting at my desk last week, he came up to me and said:

“Noodle, I only have one word to say to you…. Banoffee.”

To which he emphatically added:

“I don’t care what you make as long as it has banoffee in it, okay?”

So… I find myself at my mother-in-law’s this weekend, scrambling around an unfamiliar kitchen trying to find the tools and ingredients I need to whip up a banoffee something; that ‘something’ being a banoffee cheesecake.

Bananas flambe-ed in rum. Yum!

Now, I’ve unashamedly stolen this banoffee cheesecake recipe from famous Yorkshire celebrity chef, James Martin, but I’ve added a little twist to it which I know my friend will appreciate no end, and that’s to booze it up by flambéing rum-infused bananas to layer into this rich banoffee cheesecake recipe.

Rum-infused banoffee cheesecake

Mario, das hier ist für dich… I hope you like it and if you’re in the office on Tuesday, you might be lucky enough to get a piece… 🙂

And how does it taste?

Well, let’s just say this banoffee cheesecake is like Duff beer is to Homer, lasagne is to Garfield, heroin is to smack addicts… If you like cheesecake, you’re gonna LOVE this recipe. If you like chocolate, you’re going to LOVE this recipe. If you like dessert, you’re going to LOVE this recipe. If you’re on a diet, you’re going to hate me something chronic… So sorry.

Seriously, this cake is not diet friendly at all! It’s just unbelievably nice and dangerously easy to make. It is very rich too so you really only need a small slice or portion of this. The problem is that you’ll probably find yourself, like me (and certainly my husband!) sneaking back to the fridge to go back for many ‘small portions’. Enjoy!

Melt the butter and honey and stir this into the crushed biscuits. The chocolate will start melting so you’ll end up with a slightly sludgy mess. Press this into either a springform cake tin or use various small glasses if you want to make individual portions. Pop these into the fridge while you prepare the bananas.

For the banana layer

6-8 bananas, sliced evenly into rounds

Be careful when you pour the rum over the bananas!

25 grams butter

120ml to 150ml rum of your choice

You’ll probably need to fry your banana slices in batches so take your time over this. Melt a a little bit of butter and fry your banana slices until they start to brown and caramelise. Pour 30ml of rum over the cooking bananas (this is about a shot’s worth of rum) and allow the rum to burn off. Flip the bananas over, add a small dollop of butter if necessary and add another shot of rum.

Repeat until all of the bananas have been fried in rum.

Yumy yummy fried bananas laced with rum.

To make the cheesecake

500 grams cream cheese

4 tablespoons icing sugar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

225 grams dulce de leche or canned caramel

In a large mixing bowl, use a wooden spoon or whisk and mix all of the ingredients together until you get a pale, caramel-tinted creamy cheese mixture.

Cream cheese mixed with icing sugar, dulce de leche and maple syrup

Assembling your banoffee cheesecake

Layer slices of banana over the biscuit base (reserve some bananas to top your dessert) and then spoon over the cream cheese mixture. If you want to be naughty, I’d drizzle a tiny bit more rum over the bananas before you smother them in the creamy cheese mixture. Pop into the fridge for at least 30minutes before eating, yum!

First - the base

Then the layer of rum-infused bananas

Little pots of banoffee cheesecake heaven

James Martin’s recipe calls for a chocolate sauce to be drizzled over the cheesecake but this cake is so rich that I didn’t even bother with the sauce. However, I’ve provided his chocolate sauce recipe below in case you’re in the mood for a serious sugar overload.

Before the cheesy gold mixture is poured over the bananas

For the chocolate sauce

40 grams butter

175ml/7fl oz double cream

225g/8oz milk chocolate, roughly chopped

In a bowl set over simmering hot water, combine these ingredients and stir gently until you end up with a glossy chocolate sauce.

Did he actually say noodle? Is that what people call you in everyday life? This dessert really does look great. I’ve been thinking about doing individual bannoffee for a while, perhaps we can have a contest when I get around to doing it! 😀

Thanks. I figured you wouldn’t mind but I like to ask 😀
And thanks again for giving me another reason for making extra caramel 🙂
Last time I needed it I through an extra pint in fridge for coffee among other things.